Beyond the Frame

May 17th, 2013

I think that is a huge generalization you are making. Not everyone is specifically out for viewers or to join a conversation. I think you're forgetting that social media is fun for some people and that they do it for themselves and use things, like tumblr, as a sort of journal. I think if you were a production company looking to make it big then yes, you should be out for only viewers. But if you are production company looking to have fun and enjoy making great, creative art then you...

okaybrian

…of only other people is a very unhealthy choice to make for your life. You have to love what you do and be happy doing it and not conform to what other people might want to see. I think you should become one of those people other people get excited for while on social media, don’t you?

~ okaybrian

I agree completely. I’ve just seen too many filmmakers told that they need to start a blog or a Twitter account or a Facebook fanpage for their film. It’s great if you’re just keeping a record of what you’ve done but most filmmakers aren’t focused on doing that. They’re trying to get people to ‘like’ their page or to curate followers. I think that is time better spent. Specifically, it is better spent talking to people about movies, joining conversations, and injecting your (hopefully fascinating) point of view.

It’s not about ass kissing; it’s about being genuine. It’s like the conversation we’re having. I’m following your Tumblr because you’ve brought an interesting point of view to the table.

~ü

May 16th, 2013

How Should a Film Company Leverage Technology?

Unless you can top 5,000 unique visitors a month, your film production doesn’t need a blog. A single person visiting your blog once is not going translate down the line. The daunting hurdle of online media is to remain part of the conversation week after week.

The web is a resource - the greatest cost those who exploit it is time. So users are always going to seek convenience. That’s why social media sites, blogs, and news aggregators top the list of repeat visitors. That’s why your blog or company website is irrelevant. It isn’t convenient; it isn’t a valuable resource.

BUT social media and aggregators are content hungry. That’s where we come in. If you consistently feed the beast, you can become part of the conversation. Don’t waste time sharing production recaps and photos of your dinner. These little things matter to you. They get you excited. That’s great but it’s not going to draw viewers.

Instead of getting excited about your life, get excited about all the exceptional things that are happening to other people all over the world. Think about what storytelling actually is: it’s sharing exceptional things that happen to other people. Only the autobiography eludes this basis and the autobiography is often written in retrospect, edited by our own fickle memory.

Everyone on the web is having a public conversation because they want others to join them. Join their story. Share their story. Share a unique thought in response to that story. That’s where you really come in. The’ll remember you, they’ll be your fan as much as you are theres - I guarantee it.

~ü

May 15th, 2013

Zoom

I exposed 50 feet of film today, a camera test for an upcoming shoot.

Shooting film means that every shot matters; every shot is one less frame that you can expose. This restriction makes the shooter think twice before they shoot anything.

Shooting film means you cannot immediately see your results. This restriction means that every camera setting must be considered before you pull the trigger.

I love the workflow of film. Its thoughtful nature is idiosyncratic.

~ü

[Image: My Beaulieu 5008 Super 8 camera]

May 8th, 2013

The best way to combat piracy isn’t legislatively or criminally but by giving good options.

Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos - who claims that every time Netflix enters a new territory, its numbers go up while Torrent numbers go down. More here.

May 8th, 2013

Zoom

Ray Harryhausen passed today. Prolific animator and visual effects master. I don’t think I’m over-stating when I say that this guy basically invented visual effects in movies.
Onward and Upward (click for fighting skeletons)

~ maxhell

Ray Harryhausen passed today. Prolific animator and visual effects master. I don’t think I’m over-stating when I say that this guy basically invented visual effects in movies.

Onward and Upward (click for fighting skeletons)

~ maxhell

Reblogged from Scroll with the Punches

May 7th, 2013

There is an aesthetic crisis in writing, which is this: how do we write emotionally of scenes involving computers? How do we make concrete, or at least reconstructable in the minds of our readers, the terrible, true passions that cross telephony lines? Right now my field must tackle describing a world where falling in love, going to war and filling out tax forms looks the same; it looks like typing.

ACM Web Science talk, as written | Quinn Said (via new-aesthetic)

This. I face this challenge in every script that I develop that uses technology.

~ü

Reblogged from

May 6th, 2013

Audio - William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) discusses having Tangerine Dream create the score for The Sorcerer.

Although The Sorcerer is a remake of The Wages of Fear, Friedkin attempts to imbue the movie with a new mysterious presence: a seemingly conscious jungle that inhibits two sets of drivers from delivering sensitive, explosive material to their destination. The astonishing bridge crossing scene embodies this attempt.

Friedkin was recently in Brooklyn for a screening of The Sorcerer. He discussed his decision to share the script but not the visuals themselves with the band. Truthfully, I love the idea more than the execution, but it feels like a step in the right direction - a cinema where music, sound effects, and visuals are not separate, layered elements but sourced from the same soul.

~ü

May 6th, 2013

Orson Welles was always embarrassed by Rosebud. “It’s a gimmick, really,” he told interviewers, “and rather dollar book Freud.” The mystery of “the great man’s last words” was, like the reporter Thompson charged with solving it, “a piece of machinery” designed to lead the audience through the fragmented plot.

The solution to the mystery is supposed to be that we, like Kane’s friends, lovers, and confidantes, discover that “the great man” is actually hollow inside. There is nothing there — no lost love, no moral truths, no imparted wisdom. “Rosebud” is just a missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle. It has no special value other than that it is missing. Kane the man, like Kane the film, is what Borges called it: a labyrinth without a center.

Tim Carmody (via ayjay)

Reblogged from teabyrd

May 5th, 2013

Poetry in Cinema

I’m currently working on a film with the cinematographer Maria Cabra. It’s a small piece of poetry, shot primarily on Super 8 film, with special consideration of how the light is manipulated before it hits the celluloid (read: filters).

The film focuses on spring, spring showers, and the re-animated flow of life after winter. The image will be imbued with freedom through obscuration - images will be selectively fractured, distorted, and out-of-focus.

Formlessness is the source of possibility.

In most discussions of cinema, poetry is neglected. But poetry is what gives a film texture and mystery. I don’t create these small films for the money - I create them to practice the most important parts of the creative process.

A Georges Bataille quote that I discussed here comes to mind:

Poetry reveals a power of the unknown. But the unknown is only an insignificant void if it is not the object of a desire. Poetry is a middle term, it conceals the known within the unknown: it is the unknown painted in blinding colors, in the image of a sun.

~ü

May 3rd, 2013

Another late night, another draft submission. Driving home on a feature script with a producer. It’s a crazy business when years of hard work likely will not manifest on screen for another few years.

Writing ain’t easy but neither is funding.

~ü

Beyond the Frame

How Should a Film Company Leverage Technology?

Poetry in Cinema

Aesthetics of the Invisible World

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